Shofar FTP Archive File: people/t/taubner.max/taubner-1943-verdict

Excerpts from Verdict of the SS Court in Munich, against
SS-Untersturmfuehrer Max Taubner, 24 of May 1943
['The Good Old Days' - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Free Press,
NY, 1988, p, 196-207]
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1. The accused shall not be punished because of the actions against
the Jews as such. The Jews have to be exterminated and none of the
Jews that were killed is any great loss. Although the accused should
have recognized that the extermination of the Jews was the duty of
Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose, he should
be excused for considering himself to have the authority to take
part in the extermination of Jewry himself. Real hatred of the Jews
was the driving motivation for the accused. In the process he let
himself be drawn into committing cruel actions in Alexandriya which
are unworthy of a German man and an SS-officer. These excesses cannot
be justified, either, as the accused would like to, as retaliation
for the pain that the Jews have caused the German people. It is not
the German way to apply Bolshevic methods during the necessary
extermination of the worst enemy of our people. In so doing the
conduct of the accused gives rise to considerable concern. The
accused allowed his men to act with such vicious brutality that
they conducted themselves under his command like a savage horde...
2. By taking photographs of the incidents or having photographs
taken, by having these developed in photographic shops and showing
them to his wife and friends, the accused is guilty of disobedience.
Such pictures could pose the gravest risks to the security of the
Reich if they fell into the wrong hands...
Dismissal of the case against the remaining parties, 1 June 1943
The following has been established on the basis of the main trial
of SS-Untersturmfuehrer Max Taubner...
The following men were party to the punishable acts committed or
ordered by SS-Untersturmfuehrer Max Taubner:
1. SS-Unterscharfuehrer Walter Muller particularly stood out during
the shootings of Jews with the brutality with which he tore small
Jewish children from their mothers. He held these children in
front of him with his left hand and then, with his right hand,
shot them with a pistol.
.
. [three more SS-personnel accused]
.
Allowances have been made for the fact that the accused were, without
exception, acting on the orders of and under the responsibility
of Untersturmfuehrer Max Taubner. In this respect, their own
culpability may be described as slight...
The cases against these accused have therefore been dismissed.

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